The Legendary Study That Embarrassed Wine Experts (2014)

First violin in an orchestra will usually have a more modest instrument.

Edit to add: of course there's a lot of Veblenisation in music, and this gets silly when people who are really collectors try to do music and end up being just a more extreme kind of consumer.

Hifi, guitars, synthesizers, and recording equipment are full of this - plenty of moderately wealthy doctors, lawyers, financiers and such of low-to-average talent buying vintage or custom signature whatevers and displaying them proudly on social media.

But there are also professionals who are super-sensitive to tone and expression and have a (literal) track record of making choices that audiences respond to.

Some of them have impressive collections too, but they're able to justify them for specific creative ends.

The difference is that if you take an expert and give them an average instrument they'll do miracles with it. If you take a collector and give them a room full of classics they'll produce mediocre mush.

But give an expert the classics and they'll wring an extra level of musical credibility and interest out of them. That zone is out of reach of the collectors, but audiences still appreciate it and pay for it when they hear it.

The media tends to make this worse, because these articles (and their accompanying social media discussion) seem to exist solely for writers and readers to claim superiority over the perceived elites. Those pretentious wine snobs, don't they know an Aldi boxed wine tastes no better than their precious Chateau Lafite Rothschild?

The argument is always the same: a classification of wine, such as price, region, or even colour; is irrelevant to the quality of the wine. I find the argument itself is valid, but not convincing because it's totally orthogonal to what I'd like from a wine.

I don't care about a wines quality score, whatever that is. Wine has a deep and complex flavour, and different bottles have different flavours. Many flavours are acquired tastes - not everyone finds bitterness or tannin pleasant. This variety is what does it for me.

Honestly, I find these studies ridiculous. Our sense of taste depends so much on our eyes and nose, that such trickery will always get you results. I don't doubt I'd fall for such a trick.

Anyway, if using junk science to bash people for their preferred beverages is your favourite pastime, you do you. Something-something inferiority compl-cough

Tasting a lot of wines and beers either makes you an expert or a drunk or an expert drunk or drunk expert?

Either way, theres no certainty that a drunk isn't an expert or vice versa.